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Justice Walks August 2025
Abby Anderson
August 26, 2025
Welcome to this month’s Justice Walk newsletter.
Every step on your journey, including opening this email, matters.
This month I’ll:
Highlight the wisdom of the folks I get to coach
Recommend a podcast and stand up co
Discuss finding new insights from familiar things
Let’s get to it!
Image description: A red circular button on a silver foundation reads “PAUSE” in white, capital letters.
Do you know my favorite part of being an executive coaching for nonprofit leaders? It’s watching the folks I’m working with slow down enough to recognize and embrace their own brilliance and wisdom.
We are asked and expected to work at a breakneck pace. (Think about the reality of that phrase, “breakneck.” We know and name that the practice is definitely dangerous and potentially fatal and still use it to judge our own or others’ work-ethic rather than as a Code Red warning).
The mission-driven sector turns operating at this pace into a referendum on how much we care about our organizations’ missions and communities. It idolizes martyrdom, and individualism.
While operating over-capacity people can’t slow down to hear themselves think. To realize that they know how to address the challenges facing themselves and their teams. To recognize that they are not alone.
I recently talked with two different folks wrestling with tough questions. I asked them, “What do you want?” They both said, “I don’t know…” and then continued talking for five minutes. Both of them, given space to expand their response, gave succinct answers to their situation.
Neither noticed.
When they were done speaking I said, “May I reflect back what I heard you say? I think I heard a clear answer to your question.” Then I repeated their words.
They both paused, looked at me for a second, and said, “Wow! You solved it!”
“No,” I said, “You solved it. You knew the answer you were searching for, you just hadn’t had the time or space to notice. I am literally mirroring your words and wisdom back to you.”
Listen:
Systems tell us we have to to 1,000,000 an hour to be effective and prove our commitment
The nonprofit sector is being deliberately undermined through actual and threatened funding cuts. There is more need and fewer resources right now
Trying to sort through how to lead and maintain self-regulation during this time when so many people you care for - and maybe you - are under direct attack is very hard
Taking time and space to recognize your own wisdom is not selfish, it is a form of resistance. Why do you think systems are so against us doing it? (Shout out to Tricia Hersey).
Nonprofit leader or not, consider building 15-minutes a day into your schedule to let your brain breathe. See what happens. Most of my insights come when I stop trying to force them to appear on demand.
Maybe you could use support to learn how to make that space, to recognize and trust your own wisdom.
This is one of the things I do through The Justice Walk.
I listen without judgement, ask clarifying questions, reflect back what I hear, provide insights from my experience if requested, and help folks identify and solidify new approaches to their work.
Curious to learn more? Send me an e-mail or sign up for a FREE 45-min introductory call.
Learning Resource
Image description: A black square with Hamlet in large, yellow letters at the bottom features an image of a younger-looking Black man who looks at the camera thoughtfully. There are lots of colors and images as blurs around him.
“This revelatory new take on Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy drops you inside the fractured mind of the prince,” says The Make Believe Association about their recent podcast, “Hamlet.”
This summer, I decided to give the first episode a try and ended up bingeing the whole thing in one day. Click here or on the image above to check it out for yourself.
Part of the “new take” is that folks usually unable to see themselves within Shakespeare’s worlds are the actors, directors, sound designers, etc. The material is the same; the perspective on it is different.
Lately, I keep thinking that I’m seeing or hearing the “same old thing,” only to realize there is so much that I’d previously, completely missed. This version of Hamlet is a particularly powerful example.
What things or people in your life may be worth taking a new look at or listen to?
What may you be able to hear or see today that you couldn’t yesterday?
I’d love to hear about your examples and experiences!
Folks to Follow
Prentis Hemphill is a writer, podcaster, embodiment coach, organizer, etc. Their website lists these intentions:
Tender enough to feel
Present enough to witness
Humble enough to listen
Courageous enough to act
Accountable enough to change
Living into these ways of being requires hard work. Prentis spoke in New Haven last January on the topic of their book, What it Takes to Heal. We are supposed to grow and evolve through our lives, Prentis said. “A lot of us are unwilling to become somebody different," they said before asking, ‘Can you die to this so that you can move forward?" If you’re looking for a supremely compassionate voice for your own evolutionary journey, Prentis’ work is for you.
Vir Das is an Indian comic with four Netflix specials. You can check out the trailer for the latest one, Fool Volume, through YouTube. There are so many great stand-ups out there right now, using their platform and art form to inform. We get to build cultural competence, expand our minds, and laugh hard at the same time. Here’s another great clip. Enjoy!
Taking Care of Our Feet
Image description: A beige box has black type in the middle which reads: Belonging begins when people no longer have to navigate the dilemma between diminishing themselves and proving their worth just to be seen and survive. Arthur Chan
Read this a few times. Sit with it.
Think about times when you could tell others thought that you were “too much,” so you figured you should maybe stay in the background a bit.
Or times when you could tell folks were underestimating you, so you figured you should “show your stuff” to gain their respect.
I spent lots of time as the only girl on boys soccer teams when both of those things were true at the same time!
We work to “earn” belonging so often and in so many different ways that we stop noticing it - or recognizing it as harmful.
What if belonging didn’t have to be earned, but was assumed as a self-evident truth?
Think about spaces you are in - with family, with friends, at work. What are the “rules” around belonging in those spaces?
What are the norms?
Who has to be “in” or “out”?
Who gets to decide?
What small steps you can take to ensure more folks are invited and embraced into your spaces just as they are?
Looking for more resources, recommendations, and tools for your journey? Upgrade to a paid subscription for either $10/month or “Name My One-Time Gift.”
Inspiration For Our Walk
A bird sits in the crux of two tree branches. It has a black head and beak with some white splotches. It’s belly is reddish in the background with lots of brown spots.
I’ve taken up birding this year. It gets me outside, feeds my need for continual learning, and is a form of meditation.
This summer I was excited to see a new-to-me bird. I took careful mental notes about its size, shape, coloring so that I use my guidebooks to identify it when I got back home. You know there’s a lesson coming, right?
After 30-min of thumbing pages and using the internet I finally realized that the “robin-sized bird with brown-spotted belly” was actually a robin. A juvenile robin. (wah, wah)
It’s that same theme from above: seeing something you’ve seen hundreds of times in a brand new way - with new eyes and understanding. I must have seen hundreds (thousands?) of juvenile robins in my lifetime without ever truly looking at them
What things in your area can you look at with new curiosity? What might we learn from and about people we meet or already know by committing to truly see them?
Ready for the next step?
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Reflection from a Recent Coaching Client
“You're a really good coach, and I left the conversation feeling much clearer and less anxious. It was great timing because I had two important meetings yesterday in which I was able to show up stronger as a result.”
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